Prof. Lemma Senbet Recognized for Scholarly, Civic Contributions

Professor Lemma W. Senbet has advice for his students: “I tell them to always do your best, wherever you are and whatever you are doing – you never know who could be watching. One thing leads to another and you may end up someplace very different from where you started. Situations are what you make of them.”

It is a mantra that has carried Senbet from a childhood in a small village in Ethiopia to a position of prominence as a world-leading finance scholar. Senbet, the William E. Mayer Chair Professor of Finance and director of the Center for Financial Policy at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, was recently recognized as a distinguished scholar, teacher and role model by the Society of Ethiopians Established in Diaspora (SEED). The nonprofit organization honored Senbet and three other individuals at an event in Washington on May 27, 2012.

Senbet was recognized for “the rich and positive contributions [he has] made by exemplifying the highest ideals and standards of our community, in recognition of [his] inspiring academic and scientific excellence, for [his] civic responsibilities, community service, demonstrated love of country and for all of [his] distinctive and positive attributes,” wrote Melaku Lakew, chairman of SEED.

Senbet said he was most touched by the recognition of his community service. For the past several years, Senbet has been actively involved in giving back to the village where he was born. He provided funding to establish a library in his hometown and supports youth educational initiatives. He also started a college scholarship program for high school graduates to help youth in the ways in which he benefitted as a student.

“I consider myself – for a variety of totally random reasons – to be very fortunate to be in the position I am today,” he said. “I come from the region of the world that is very disadvantaged, and as I advance in my career and in my life, I feel a sense of obligation to give back. I want to help nurture the potential in others.”

Senbet was the youngest of six children. With his older brother as a role model, he worked very hard and advanced quickly through school. He graduated first in his high school class and was able to pass a competitive national exam to study at Haile Selassie I University (HSIU). He enrolled in the university’s newly launched College of Business Administration on a whim.

“In high school, I was interested in physics and planned to study engineering. But when I got to campus to enroll, I saw a very long line for the new business school, started by a group of American business schools. I decided to try to get in and was accepted,” Senbet said.

Senbet wholeheartedly threw himself into the study of business and vowed to work hard enough to earn the top spot in the class. Four years later, he had achieved the goal: No. 1 in the business school and the Chancellor’s gold medal from the Emperor. He decided to gain experience outside of Ethiopia and enrolled in an MBA program at UCLA. After completing the accelerated program in a year, he entered a PhD program at SUNY Buffalo, intending to stay for just a year before returning to Ethiopia. But in that year, political upheaval in his birth country sent Ethiopians fleeing and caused Senbet to stay put in the U.S. and finish his doctorate. He landed a position at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he began an illustrious career as a preeminent scholar of corporate and international finance.

In 1990, Rudy Lamone, then dean of the business school, lured Senbet to the University of Maryland to build the school’s finance program to one of national prominence. Senbet led the department for eight years and it has emerged among the top in the world for research in corporate finance and investments. He is currently a founding director of the Center for Financial Policy, established in 2009 in response to the global financial crisis.

Senbet is internationally recognized for his widely cited contributions to finance, which have appeared in the field’s top academic journals. He has mentored numerous doctoral students who have gone on to such top positions as dean of Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business and chief economist of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. And he has contributed to policy work with the World Bank, the IMF, and the United Nations.

He also lends his professional expertise to projects and policy outreach in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa with a variety of institutions, including the African Union regarding trade and investment in Africa.

“Thanks to his encouragement and wise counsel we have succeeded to launch a bank 64 percent of whose equity is owned by women, probably one of its kind,” Meaza Ashenafi, founding chair of Enat Bank in Ethiopia, wrote of Senbet in an email.

Senbet didn’t even realize he had such a big impact on Ashenafi, but that goes back to reasons he tells students to always work hard and be open to whatever may come. “My professional achievements are something beyond my dreams.”